DRAFT REPORT CONTROL OF AMMUNITION AND COMMUNITY-BASED CRIME PREVENTION INITIATIVES
CONTENTS
Monday 13 June 1994
Control of ammunition and community-based crime prevention initiatives
STANDING COMMITTEE ON ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
*Chair / Président: Marchese, Rosario (Fort York ND)
Vice-Chair / Vice-Président: Harrington, Margaret H. (Niagara Falls ND)
*Akande, Zanana L. (St Andrew-St Patrick ND)
Bisson, Gilles (Cochrane South/-Sud ND)
*Chiarelli, Robert (Ottawa West/-Ouest L)
Curling, Alvin (Scarborough North/-Nord L)
*Haeck, Christel (St Catharines-Brock ND)
*Harnick, Charles (Willowdale PC)
*Malkowski, Gary (York East/-Est ND)
*Murphy, Tim (St George-St David L)
Tilson, David (Dufferin-Peel PC)
*Winninger, David (London South/-Sud ND)
*In attendance / présents
Substitutions present/ Membres remplaçants présents:
Carter, Jenny (Peterborough ND) for Mr Malkowski
Mills, Gordon (Durham East/-Est ND) for Mr Bisson
Clerk / Greffière: Bryce, Donna
Staff / Personnel: McNaught, Andrew, research officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1545 in room 228.
DRAFT REPORT CONTROL OF AMMUNITION AND COMMUNITY-BASED CRIME PREVENTION INITIATIVES
The Chair (Mr Rosario Marchese): Just as a brief summary, we had agreed that the researcher would do a summary of recommendations, which you have all received, and that each caucus would come back ready with its own ideas or recommendations and start working on the report today. That's what we said we would do, so I'm in your hands.
Mr Gordon Mills (Durham East): I have a document that's been prepared based upon the presentations. Our caucus has endorsed this, and at the back of the document we have made seven recommendations.
In the interests of expediency, I suggest that we would table our recommendations and our report with the research officer, who in turn hopefully would look at the same sort of document from the other parties, and then we would be looking for a draft copy of a report that we could look at before we come back into committee tomorrow afternoon; say at noon that we could see this.
The Chair: Do the different caucus members have anything to submit by way of suggestions or recommendations? Obviously, we haven't shared that; we were going to do that today.
If you have things to submit to each caucus so we can all look at it, I suggest it would be in our interests to come back tomorrow and deal with this as opposed to taking the time it takes to read the recommendations or for each caucus to read its own stuff. It might make it a little more difficult. We could do that if you're ready to do that, or, as I suggest, pass on the different recommendations to each caucus to read and come back tomorrow prepared to do the writing of the report.
Mr Mills: We have the report before us from the legislative research. I'm just wondering, if the other parties have a written response, whether all the written responses could go to that research service to then come up with a report we could read tomorrow, to make the discussion perhaps more meaningful and more to the point rather than go through this document which doesn't really make any recommendations at all; it's just a synopsis of the things that were said.
The Chair: I hear the suggestion you're making. Let's listen to the others and then see.
Mr Robert Chiarelli (Ottawa West): I made the suggestion last week that we table a number of documents before we start drafting a report, and I suggested that one of the documents be the summary which the researcher will have prepared from the recommendations and the submissions. The Progressive Conservative Party has a policy document on the issues that are included in the motion, and I suggested also that they table that, and that we table our Safe Communities paper, which has a number of specific recommendations. I suggested also that the government table some specific recommendations. All that, basically with the plan that we would sit down and do some cherry picking and create some suggestions for action as MPPs which we can have a consensus on from the documents we've been working so hard on over all this time. I think that's a very reasonable suggestion to make.
We have Bill 151, the ammunition bill, which has been, according to my assessment of the researcher's paper or compendium, very well received. It's definitely constitutional, supported by a range of people. I think we have some good fodder, some good ammunition, if I may, to create a report, and I think we should do it in a non-partisan way. We not only can, but I think we have an obligation to report something back to the Legislature that's doable and doable now.
I don't think people are expecting us to recommend further study, further reviews, further reports. They want an action plan. We're here to do it. We have a Conservative document, we have a Liberal document, we have a committee document, we have a document that's going to be tabled by the government representatives. Let's put them all on the table and let's start, at least initially, seeing where there is a broad consensus and include those in our report, and then perhaps we can debate some on which there is not as broad a consensus. I think that's the way we should proceed. We have an obligation to present an action plan to the Legislature, and we should sit down, roll up our sleeves and do it.
Mr Mills: I agree with the substance of what Mr Chiarelli has put forward, but I would like to remind members of the committee that it is my understanding that the mandate of the committee was to deal with ammunition and guns, and I would not want to have the Conservative Party's policy document -- whatever that agenda is that they've got -- introduced as a document. We're really tasked with looking at guns and ammunition, and I would hope those parameters are kept to.
Mr Chiarelli: And community policing. Our mandate is community policing and ammunition.
The Chair: The title says Control of Ammunition and Community-Based Crime Prevention Initiatives is the basis for all of this. Mr Chiarelli, you were saying much of what I was trying to pull together as well. We'll get all of the different policy statements you all have, and people can read them for tomorrow and be prepared to come to some agreement on things that relate to this initiative. Is that all right?
The other suggestion, that Mr Mills made, was that Mr McNaught get all the different reports people have, attempt to see what agreement there is in the three policy statements or recommendations people have and put that into some kind of order, if possible, and we might be able to use that as the basis for a discussion. That might work out, to use that as a working paper.
Mr Mills: That was my intention, Chair.
The Chair: But that might not be the sole paper. It could be just a working document, and other members may have other things to add, of course.
Mr Tim Murphy (St George-St David): I haven't had the opportunity to see what Mr Mills is going to be tabling. I don't know how long it is. It may be that we can read the recommendations fairly quickly now. I just don't want to waste the whole day.
The Chair: People have to read your document as well, and the Conservative members have a document.
Mr Murphy: But we do have a specific bill, which is Bill 151, and we've been discussing that. People have a sense of the bill. We may be able to do some work on it, in terms of some of the community-based crime prevention. Stuff broader than the ammunition bill may require further discussion and thought once we see the papers, but on the bill, people have had the bill for weeks.
The Chair: That's fine. I think they're ready.
Mr Chiarelli: I think we should be very clear on what's before us. The House leaders debated actually referring Bill 151 to this committee, and the government in particular was not interested in having Bill 151 dealt with as a bill. Instead, the motion included the general subject of ammunition purchase-and-sale control.
I think it's open for this committee to recommend to the government, the Solicitor General and the House leader that Bill 151 as a bill be referred right back to this committee and we have the summer to deal with it.
I say that because when questions were asked in the Legislature of the Solicitor General, his main concern was the constitutionality of the bill. We have two constitutional experts who were selected independently by the clerk of the committee who have come before the committee to say that it is constitutional, that we have the authority. That's number one.
Number two: We have a range of witnesses who have come before the committee, including the Canadian Police Association, Metropolitan Toronto Police Force, the Coalition for Gun Control, CAVEAT and a number of others, who have very strongly indicated that the province should take a leadership role.
My concern, and I hope the government members can give us some feedback on it, is that the only representatives of the Ministry of the Solicitor General who came before us, that's the chief provincial firearms officer and two other officials from the Solicitor General, clearly said it's constitutional but also clearly said that in their opinion they would prefer that the federal government take the leadership on ammunition. I take them as speaking for the Solicitor General and I'm very concerned that the Solicitor General is going to want to try to slow down or not take the initiative or leadership on the question of ammunition purchase and sale.
I would like somebody on the government side to indicate to me whether the three representatives from the Solicitor General's office who were before the committee and spoke against the province taking the leadership on this issue were speaking for the Solicitor General.
The Chair: You're asking a question and you're soliciting an answer, I suppose. I'm not clear. Or are you just making a statement?
Mr Chiarelli: I'm asking a question of the government whip or the parliamentary assistant.
The Chair: All right. Before we do that, it's important to have a sense of what we're going to do for the day. Mr Murphy is suggesting that perhaps we might begin, and we could. You may want to share the documents, in which case we should make copies. We could either begin by asking questions or talking about different things that people can respond to, or share the documents. We should decide what we're going to do for the day. Mr Harnick, do you want to offer an opinion on what direction you want to take for the day?
Mr Charles Harnick (Willowdale): I don't really care; whatever the consensus is sounds reasonable to me.
The Chair: Do we want to make copies of whatever document you have, Mr Mills, and whatever document you have, Mr Chiarelli? Should we do that meantime?
Mr Chiarelli: Plus Bill 151. Presumably you should circulate Bill 151 as part of our document.
Mr Mills: Is Mr McNaught going to copy all of it and try to do what I asked, consolidate something?
The Chair: Mr Murphy suggests that we might begin this discussion today. If so, I'm not sure how it fits with what Mr McNaught could do for the following day.
Mr Mills: The discussion that would follow from this information coming back would be much more productive than going at different odds here this afternoon. I'm trying to make it more concise and more relevant to the committee in the discussion. It would be much better if we had it all before us rather than picking out pieces as we go along. That's my opinion.
The Chair: Mr Chiarelli, his suggestion is still that it's best to circulate his document and this. Does the Conservative member have a copy of something he wants to submit for this committee?
Mr Harnick: Would you like me to get a bunch of those and deliver them? I'll do that.
The Chair: Charles, what I'm asking is, if we're going to do this for tomorrow and if we're asking Mr McNaught to try to pull something together, then we'd be all right for tomorrow.
Mr Harnick: Let me get a copy so we can read them.
The Chair: So we can read them and he can do some of the work.
Mr Harnick: How many would you like?
The Chair: Enough for the members and a few for Andrew, 10 or so. Do we want to do that, or do you want to just have some back and forth discussion right now on some issues you've raised?
Mr Chiarelli: Perhaps what we should do is have a brief discussion so we can get a sense of how we're going to approach the actual writing, notwithstanding what's in the documents substantively. Assuming that we read them and have some ideas about what should go into an action plan, what are we going to be doing, how are we going to organize ourselves tomorrow when we come back?
Mr Mills: We want to know what we're doing. You want an action plan.
Mr Chiarelli: How are we going to create that action plan? In other words, how will we conduct ourselves tomorrow to get to an action plan?
Mr Mills: It would add to the quality of the discussion if we had this report back with all our comments in the record, the way this is, so we could focus on things rather than go willy-nilly. The subject matter is very limited and concise that we discussed, and that's why I'm trying to get the focus on what we're here for.
The Chair: Do you have any other suggestions as to what Mr McNaught could be doing in terms of the breakdown of it?
Mr Chiarelli: I was going to ask both the researcher and the clerk for some suggestions, based on experience in other cases, about what they might suggest as an appropriate way to proceed. Did the clerk hear the question?
The Chair: The question is on past precedents in terms of how we might proceed.
Clerk of the Committee (Ms Donna Bryce): I don't think there are any precedents. They can give direction to the researcher to come back with a report or they can sit down and write one themselves. Normally, it's the researcher.
The Chair: Mr McNaught, do you have any suggestions in terms of how we might proceed, based on your expansive experience?
Mr Andrew McNaught: I'm afraid I don't have a sense of what the committee wants, what the positions are on the various issues that were raised. I could try to be a mind reader and draft something that I think everybody would be agreeable to, but I'd be guessing at this point.
The Chair: Mr Chiarelli, once we read each other's material we may have a sense of what we could speak to, and it might take more than tomorrow, obviously, to put the action plan together. But I think it would be helpful to have something in front of us that we've all read and looked at, and based on that, tomorrow we might have a sense of what we might do subsequently. Mr McNaught could try to put something together based on what agreement there may be in the three documents.
Mr Mills: We could all agree on some things, couldn't we? Is that possible, Tim?
Mr Murphy: I am always hopeful, on many issues.
The Chair: Are there any other suggestions in terms of what else we might do for tomorrow?
Mr Chiarelli: Are we scheduled two days next week on this as well?
Clerk of the Committee: The 20th and 21st.
Mr Chiarelli: So we'd have three days to draft, and discussion today.
The Chair: If things break down tomorrow, we may have to have a subcommittee to discuss what else we can do.
Mr Murphy: Part of the problem is that without knowing how much of a fight we're going to have, if we all speak in a vacuum --
Mr Chiarelli: The government controls the agenda.
Mr Murphy: But any partisan issues aside, without having a sense of what the government is going to say yes to --
The Chair: Mr Mills, do you have a copy of something they could peruse very quickly? Can we make some copies immediately?
Mr Murphy: A five-minute read of that might let us have a much better sense of what it is we'll be talking about.
Mr Chiarelli: How many letters do we have to send to the federal government?
Mr Mills: What should be on our minds too is that a lot of the witnesses who came before us said that in their opinion the federal government is going to move on these issues in maybe two weeks, which may make all our discussion --
Mr Chiarelli: When it comes to Bill 151, or Bill 151 in some amended form, I think we should not set that aside in anticipation of the federal government moving in this area. I think what we can do is ask the Solicitor General and the House leader to refer it back to this committee for deliberation as a bill, legislation. We can have whatever hearings we want to have over the break. We can report it back for third reading. In fact, we could even pass it on third reading and the government could hold it for proclamation, pending what the federal government does. Quite frankly, it may take the feds years, and my recollection of the advice we received from people who came before the committee is that the province should show the leadership on the issue and we should go alone if we have to.
If we move to third reading and if it were passed on third reading, on the understanding that the government would not proclaim it if the federal government moved into the area, that would satisfy me and I believe it would satisfy our caucus. Then we would have basically something that is alive and could be implemented if the federal government turned away from this area.
The Chair: I propose that we recess for 10 minutes while some of you read that document that should be coming shortly.
The committee recessed from 1605 to 1613.
The Chair: Is there agreement to have Mr McNaught go back and, in reading all these documents, come together with some sense of three things that Mr Harnick was talking about -- community-based crime prevention initiative suggestions; a proposal re this bill and possible amendments, based on whatever there is that we might agree on; and you said also the role of the federal government -- in terms of whatever position we want to take as a committee.
Mr Harnick: All I am referring to is that the government document Mr Mills has been kind enough to provide us with virtually emphasizes in every area what we should be asking the federal government to deal with. That's fair; a lot of this is in the federal jurisdiction. But at least we have an influence and we should be dealing with this in a comprehensive way.
The Chair: So we would come back next Monday. We may call a subcommittee meeting, however, because it might be useful just to make sure we're on the right track and not spend all our time Monday agreeing or disagreeing on what we're going to do. I may call a subcommittee on Thursday to get a better sense of how things are going, and by that time Mr McNaught should have had time to read and review.
Mr Murphy: Mr McNaught has outlined a series of recommendations on quite a number of specifics that we heard from witnesses. I think it would be helpful, to the extent that members and caucuses can do so, led by the subcommittee meeting, if we can give an indication of acceptance or rejection of the individual amendments or individual suggestions in here -- or you can reject the whole page, it doesn't matter -- so he has a bit of a sense where, on specifics, each of us is going so he can identify that for Monday. We have broad-brush recommendations, for example, on the government side, but it's not clear what specifics, all the specifics, they would support or reject, and we could waste a lot of time going back and forth on that on Monday. It may be helpful, if we're having a subcommittee meeting on Thursday, to give an indication to Mr McNaught yea or nay on specifics.
Mr Chiarelli: I'm a bit puzzled by the government's recommendations, not so much by what's in the seven recommendations as by what's not there. The motion that was referred to the committee basically covered two areas: one was the area of ammunition, and the other was community safety or crime prevention, however it was described in the motion. There are no recommendations whatsoever relating to the second part of the motion; it's all related to ammunition or guns. I would certainly hope that when we do get together next week there'll be some consideration to looking at the whole motion.
The Chair: Next week we would be sitting Monday and Tuesday. Is it your sense that we'll need Wednesday and therefore need to ask our House leaders to give us agreement to sit Wednesday?
Mr Chiarelli: If necessary.
The Chair: So we'll ask the House leaders for agreement to sit on Wednesday if necessary.
Mr McNaught with a point of clarification.
Mr McNaught: Is the committee asking me for a document that compares the three documents I've received from each party, or is the committee asking for a draft report based on those?
Mr Mills: A draft; that's what I said.
Mr Harnick: Yes, I think we want a draft report. And I don't think you should spend all your time dealing with these other documents, because I think you've got to confine it to what the motion is.
Mr McNaught: Those documents as they relate to the motion.
Mr Chiarelli: You're going to basically amalgamate the committee deliberations, presentations, briefs or what have you, with whatever documents we've given you which relate to the motion.
The Chair: I think we've dealt with everything else on this committee. Mr Murphy, you've got a question?
Mr Murphy: Besides this, what other matters are sitting on the list?
The Chair: We have Bill 3, An Act to provide for Access to Information relating to the affairs of Teranet Land Information Services Inc., a motion by Mr Tilson. I'm not sure what the members want to do with that. We have Bill 45. We have Bill 56, An Act to protect the Civil Rights of Persons in Ontario.
Mr Harnick: That's gone.
The Chair: All right. Bill 89, An Act to amend the Health Protection and Promotion Act: We have some work on that, not too much, but that still is outstanding in terms of work we've already done. Bill 151, An Act to control the Purchase and Sale of Ammunition, which is part of this, and there is the standing order 125 designation, the victims of crime report that we have to still complete.
Mr Murphy: We have three minutes left on that?
The Chair: Three minutes left, but there's a great deal of work in that designation. Then there's a 108 designation, which is this one. So there are just a few issues outstanding, but I'm not sure what the committee's interest in the other issues is.
This committee is adjourned until next week, Monday.
The committee adjourned at 1619.